It's Chickadee Fee Bee Time

         Anywhere there are chickadees, people will be familiar with the clear drawn out Fee Bee sound that chickadees make when they are indicting an interest in mating. Alberta has 4 species of chickadees, but the most common one in our area is the black capped chickadee. We have some boreal chickadees and the odd time we will see a mountain chickadee. The other chickadee we have is the chestnut backed chickadee.

       This morning as I was delivering papers at 6:30 AM, a couple of chickadees were doing the fee bee thing and it was a bit of a competition. They also called at the same time so there was a slight harmony. I stood and listened and enjoyed the pleasant morning music. I did not see either bird.

     I have watched chickadees in the same situation. They seem to be saying to any female chickadee who will listen, "Come over here and see my house." I observed this one time as two were calling and a female came by and looked at the first situation. There was fussing by both birds. She then left and went directly to the second bird and looked at his potentials. She also left him. The males seem to pick a nest loction, start excavating a nest cavity and then say, "Oh I need a mate to help me with this."

     All the activity and pleasant sound make for  pleasant part of spring. People who have lived all their lives in chickadee habitat are very familiar with the sound, but maybe not so familiar with all the activity. Next time you hear the pleasant sound take time to see if you can watch what the birds are doing.

The Unhandy Handyman

       Yeah! That's me in the title. I can freely admit that my aptitude is totally lacking when it comes to handyman efforts. I don't know which way to turn the wrench! I never found a board that I could cut straight I accept that characteristic and can live quite happily with it.

       However, my wife has a completely different perspective. Whenever anything needs repair, she immediately thinks of self repair and gets into high gear. . And her repair man is me.

        On Tuesday the central vacuum motor quickly slowed down and stopped . The motor had burned out. So my wife quickly thinks that old Red can rapidly instal a new motor in no time flat. My wife is the manager, shopper and  supervisor of the whole project. It just works better that way. First, she phones all businesses that sell electric motors and gets a price. Then she wonders about gaskets, seals or whatever on the top and bottom of the motor and phones everybody back again. Now the motor prices varied widely and the advice on the seals...gaskets varies again so that sets her off on more research. Then what about the black rubber hose that connects the exhaust to the motor. This rubber hose seems to be attached with 14 kinds of super glue and it will not come off so that  it can be attached to the new motor.

      Now three separate trips are made to figure out  a solution to the gaskets and hose connector to the new motor. Finally, these problems are solved and then she can order the new motor. I am her "backer upper" on the solution to these problems as I am the handy man whose going to take all this apart and put it back together again. She does not trust my ability and she has very good reasons to not trust my mechanical aptitude.

      Why not just call the repair man and have something done fast and dirty. Solution proposed, and work done, and away we go! My wife isn't made that way. She has to fix things herself. She doesn't trust repair men and thinks they will always over charge her. So the unhandy handyman is always called into service.

     So after much research and trial and error the motor will be replaced and run better than ever. You can see that I have a pile of connected parts and a tangle of tools. All of this will pass.

    I'm not asking for sympathy. I certainly hope you appreciate my ineptitude and get a chuckle out of it. If you want to feel sorry for somebody, you can feel sorry for my wife who has to put up with me and is driven to fix all of her own problems independently

More Rockin Language

        A few days ago I posted a piece which gave the backgound to some of our everyday sayings. Many of the common statements we use have interesting origins which reach back many years. Today they are commonly used and make our language expressive and interesting. They rock our speech up a bit!

       
     If you ever watched television programs on the "dirtiest" jobs you will know that in order to tan animal skins it was necessary to collect large amounts of human urine. In order to collect the urine families would all pee in a pot and then once a day the urine was taken and sold to the tannery . If that was the only money they had on which to survive they were called "piss poor." The people who could not even afford to buy a pot in which to collect urine were the lowest of the low and "did not have a pot to piss in."

      The floors of the houses of the poor were often dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. So the phrase "dirt poor" indicated the status of the family. The wealthy, on the other hand , had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they would spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on , more and more thresh was added until when the door was opened the thresh would start slipping out. A piece of wood was then placed across the entrance to prevent the loss of the thresh and became the "threshold."

        When a family could obtain some bacon they felt quite special. When visitors came over they would hang the flitch of bacon. It was a sign of wealth that the man could "bring home the bacon." The family would cut off a little of the flitch and share it with their guests and then they would all sit around and "chew the fat."

       Bread wa divided according to status. Workers were given the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family received the middle and the guests received the top , or "the upper crust."

      You can probably think of many other day to day sayings we use and may wonder where they came from.

   

Red DeerRiver Vistas

       April the fourth, Easter Sunday, was a good day for a walk because a huge delicious Easter dinner was in store for me. My wife and I decided a walk along the banks of the Red Deer River would be the perfect exercise to prepare for Easter dinner. When we got to the river we found the trails wet, muddy, slushy and snow covered so the walk was limited.

      I had decided to take my camera just in case something interesting was encountered.

Something interesting was found. At Red Deer, the Red DeerRiver is basically a mountain stream with steep banks.

For some unknown reason I thought the house at the top of the distant ridge would make a great picture centered by the river. The white house is barely visible. The guy has a billion dollar view as the house is about 2 kms away. The 2 kms of river is braided with islands and at most times there are tremendous numbers of waterfowl.

This stretch of river has some areas of small rapids. In the distance the river runs out of room and has to make a sharp left turn.

A couple of hundred kms from here the Red Deer River becomes a classic prairie river with a well developed valley and high banks. It is then running through the badlands around Drumheller , Alberta.

For a super canoe trip, this river is tops. The rapids are not challenging and the stream is fast. Most of the time you do not see any evidence of human activity...just you and the river.

So later on, the dinner was enjoyed and the exercise was valued.

The Beauty of Tundra Swans in Migration

        On March 27 and 28 I was treated to the awesome beauty of tundra swans (cygnus columbianus) flying over my district. The  mornings were both dark gray overcast so the brilliant white of the birds was sparkling as they flew towards the north. The striking color is just as noticeable under a clear blue sky as well.

        Tundra swans pass through Alberta in late March or early April  to their nesting grounds on the Arctic coast. They will rest and feed here for a short time, but keep on pressing north always landing on frozen over lakes and ponds. This is the condition they find on the Arctic coast when they begin nesting. The whole reproduction cycle is successful by a mere number of days. Egg incubation, maturation of young until they develop their flight feathers leaves very little room for error. The young must begin fall migration with very little flight experience.

      Tundra swans can be hard to distinguish from trumpeter swans(cygnus buccinator). Trumpeter swans are larger than tundra swans and nest in northern Alberta. The tundra swan has a small amount of yellow on the bill. It is difficult to tell the difference between  the species out in the field. Their voices are also different, but again you have to be experienced to recognize them.

      So once again I have the exciting experience to see tundra swans in migration. Just so trumpeter swans and you don't think I'm biased, I also enjoy the larger trumpeter swan as well. The trumpeter's will hang around on local ponds for a while so they can be observed at a more leisurely pace.

Hiawatha House Celebrates 100 Posts

       I just noticed that my last post was #100! Somewhat of a surprise! I started Hiawatha House in Aug. of 2008. I wasn't on the internet and had no real idea of where or how  this project would go. I didn't get on the internet until Mar. of 2009. Then I had to learn a whole lot of things about blogger. It took a while until I started to post on a regular basis.

      There are some things that were difficult and others that were easy. It was difficult to set the blog up so that it was noticed by others. I still haven't got everything done on that topic. It turned out to be easy to have topics to write about. Pictures are still a challenge.

      So I'm looking forward to my next 100 posts and hope you like reading them as much as I like writing them.

Language Rocks

         I have always appreciated all aspects language no matter if it's ours or anybody elses. There is much to learn and understand when we learn some of the language background. There are many Ah ha moments when one key point suddenly explains a whole lot of things. When we learn a second language we discover much about our own language.


        I came across a number of these ah ha's in the Alberta Retired Teachers' Association News and Views. They do not give an origin for these little pieces , but obviously someone had to do a fair amount of research to discover these gems. So here they are. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.


      In the 1400s law was set forth in England that a man was permitted to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have " the rule of thumb."


      In Shakespeare's time , mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When a person pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened making the bed firmer to sleep on- hence the phrase..."Good night, sleep tight."


     It was accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding , the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead was honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based , this period was called the honey moon month. Today it has been shortened to honeymoon, without the father-in-law's obligation.


       In English pubs , ale is ordered by pints and quarts. In old England when customers became unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts and settle down." From that came the phrase"mind your P's and Q's."


      Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim , or handle of their ceramic mugs. When they needed a refill they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle " is the phrase inspired by this practice.